on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of Earth

27 August, 2006 - Two moons will be visible.

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will ultimate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of Earth.

Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am . It will look like The Earth has 2 Moons. Don't Miss it.
The next time Mars may come like this close only in 2287.
NOTE: Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again .

IS IT TRUE?

[Diana]

Hi rkraju....welcome to the board.


I think you must have read an old article, that happend August 27, 2003. You can see HERE.


Diana

[ozzmoziz]

ya diana is right ur off by 3 years.

next close fly by will be in 2007 dec 19 , mars will be .5893 au and will be very high in the sky alt 66 dec, anguler size will be 16 arc sec. and will be 100% illumination, still a while before we see it but we have to be patent!

Thanks a lot for your clarification.

regards
Rk

[Dragon Star]

Hi rkraju, welcome to EAF!

[stuart]

Originally Posted by rkraju

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will ultimate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of Earth.
IS IT TRUE?

No. For Mars to appear this large, it would need to be about twice as far away as our Moon, which would put it at 750,000 km away. Mars never gets this closeat any time. This was a rumor that was circulating on the internet for quite a long time, and has pretty much repeated every year since 2003.

Our moon appears to be about 1/2 of a degree, or 30 arc minutes in diameter. In August of 2003, Mars appeared to be almost 1/2 of an arcminute, or 30 arc seconds in diameter -- 60 times smaller than the full moon. This is still too small to be seen as anything other than a point with the naked eye.

This August, Mars will be quite small as seen from Earth, being about 4 arc seconds in diameter, which is about 1/500th (0.2%) the size of the full moon.

I think it doing again! Maybe Mars will be closer to us ever than before as due to close up galaxies.

[stuart]

Originally Posted by Supercell Hunters

I think it doing again! Maybe Mars will be closer to us ever than before as due to close up galaxies.

Not to seem rude, but ... huh?

[Dragon Star]

Seriously, what was that about?

On other forum, alot of people blaming about Mars close up like 2003, but it closer this time though.